


too young to feel so numb (maybe I’m waking up today)

by OsleyaKomWonkru



Series: Hopes for Season Six [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy is a jerk, Female Friendship, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Hopeful Ending, Post-Episode: s05e13 Damocles Part 2, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Raven is there for Octavia, Raven only knows one phrase but she makes it count, Season 6 Speculation, Second Chances, Talking About the Past, Trigedasleng, compassion - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 01:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17694857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsleyaKomWonkru/pseuds/OsleyaKomWonkru
Summary: The transport ship is off and away to the new planet, and Raven gets a message from Bellamy - he'd set a timer on Octavia's cryopod, set to wake her after they'd departed. And that was a few minutes ago.Raven finds a despondent Octavia alone in the cryo chamber, and though they've never been friends, Raven knows what it is like to feel like there's no hope, and must use that to reach out to her.“Octavia -” Raven stepped forward, but stopped short.Octavia didn’t blame her. Even before all the stories Raven had surely heard about her since the bunker was opened, they hadn’t been friends. Hell, they hadn’t even seen each other since the battle against ALIE. They’d stopped in to Arkadia briefly before going to Polis, but the last time they’d been near each other for more than a few seconds had been -- Lincoln’s funeral.No,she corrected herself.LincolnandSinclair’s funeral.Raven had lost someone dear to her too.Octavia looked up at her. She could tell from the expression on Raven’s face that she was thinking of the same day.“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Pocahontas?”





	too young to feel so numb (maybe I’m waking up today)

**Author's Note:**

> So I have a new series. Oops? This one is called "Hopes for Season Six", because while I'd totally love for things to go the way they do in my Untold Story of Wonkru 'verse, I know it is highly highly unlikely, and pretty much already jossed by the small amount of BTS pics we've gotten. So consider this the "more realistic version" of what I would like to happen.
> 
> Starting here! Octavia and Raven have had one (1!) conversation in the entire show where it is just the two of them, and that was in 1x08. The last time they were even on-screen together was super-briefly in 3x15. Their characters haven't even been in the same places since then, so not even any opportunities for off-screen contact. But now that they're both on the _Eligius IV_ , there's a chance!
> 
> Important to remember: While we all know both Octavia and Raven quite well, the girls don't really know each other. And not only because of the six year time jump - they weren't ever close to begin with. So that is reflected here as Raven tries to find some sort of common ground with Octavia. It isn't easy!

The world was white.

Octavia felt like she was floating.

She’d never spacewalked before, but this is what she imagined it would be like - effortless, at peace, the world quiet around her.

But the white began to retreat. The world grew dark. She heard noise again.

_No no no._

Had she been floated after all? Was that her fate, to draw breath anew just as it was torn from her lungs forever?

Octavia opened her eyes.

She took a deep breath. No, she wasn’t floated. That much was at least true. But the only sound she heard was the hum of the cryochamber all around her. No voices, no footsteps.

Nothing but the machine hum and her own breathing.

Octavia hopped down from the cryopod and looked around - still no one, though she saw most of the cryopods were still occupied, but not the one below her, where the screen read “Bellamy Blake”.

That meant her brother was awake.

She glanced back up to her own, and saw a note taped to it -

_Go to the bridge. Raven will fill you in. -B._

Octavia’s eyes filled with angry tears as she ripped the note off the pod, crumpling it up and throwing it to the floor.

Why would her brother have her woken up, but not even be there for it? Why didn’t he just let her sleep? To leave her in that peace?

“He wants me to suffer.” Octavia said to an empty room, that the only conclusion she could come to. “He wants me to feel that pain. The pain I’ve been living with _every damn day_ since - since -” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t even know which horrible event her brain was thinking of. There were too many of them.

“Since what?”

Octavia started, not expecting anyone to be in the room with her, it had been empty just moments before, where -

She turned to the door to find Raven.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on the bridge?” Octavia said flatly, kicking the note Bellamy had left.

“I was. And just as they were passing through the atmosphere Bellamy radioed to say that I should be expecting you any minute. That he’d set a timer on your pod. What a jackass.”

“I’ll just get back in. Don’t want to take you away from your precious work. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“That’s not what I meant. He’s the jackass for not being there. Leaving you to wake up alone.”

“In case you missed the memo, everyone hates me. I don’t expect ten years in cryosleep changed anything. And now my brother has left me back in this _prison_ in the sky instead of letting me go back to the ground.” Octavia huffed. “It isn’t like I’d bother him down there. He can do whatever the hell he wants. I just want to be left alone.”

“Octavia -” Raven stepped forward, but stopped short.

Octavia didn’t blame her. Even before all the stories Raven had surely heard about her since the bunker was opened, they hadn’t been friends. Hell, they hadn’t even seen each other since the battle against ALIE. They’d stopped in to Arkadia briefly before going to Polis, but the last time they’d been near each other for more than a few seconds had been -

\- Lincoln’s funeral. _No,_ she corrected herself. _Lincoln **and** Sinclair’s funeral._

Raven had lost someone dear to her too.

Octavia looked up at her. She could tell from the expression on Raven’s face that she was thinking of the same day.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Pocahontas?” Raven teased, though her tone was grim.

Octavia scoffed. “I haven’t been that girl in a long time.”

“So I hear.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard all sorts of lovely stories about me.” Octavia sighed, jumping back up onto the cryopod and lying down. “So if it’s all the same to you, just hit that button and I’ll be out of your way.”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“You can’t hide from your pain, Octavia.”

“Watch me.”

“It’ll still be there when you wake up, even if you wait another hundred years. You can’t sleep it away. It’ll all still be there.”

Octavia propped herself up on one elbow and looked at Raven in confusion. “Hold up, _what? Another_ hundred years?”

“That’s right, you don’t know. Sorry. It’s - it isn’t ten years later. It has been a hundred and twenty five years that we’ve been asleep.”

“Well, at least more of the Earth should have come back by now.”

Raven shook her head. “We’re not near Earth anymore. We’re at a completely different planet. Earth wasn’t coming back, so they - he - sent us to a new solar system.”

“They? He?”

“Monty and Harper. They didn’t go to sleep. They stayed awake, ate their algae, raised their son - and found us a new home.”

“I’ll be damned. The farmers did save us after all.”

“Yeah.” Raven sighed. “But who knows what this new planet will bring. A bunch of them have gone down to check it out. Your brother included.”

“Let adventure squad have their fun chasing butterflies and running into new wildlife.” Octavia said sardonically, laying back down. “Wake me up when it’s over and there’s a forest that I can disappear into.”

“I said no.”

“What the hell’s your problem?”

“Right now, you.”

“Then let me go back to sleep and I’ll stop being your problem.”

“I’m starting to think you don’t know what no means.”

Octavia fumed and jumped back down to the ground, stalking towards Raven. “You’re just like my brother. You _want_ me to suffer.” Octavia growled. “You all lived in your space paradise, having no idea what life was like for the rest of us. Everything we went through. Everything we had to do to survive. Everything _I_ had to do to make sure my people survived. And none of it ended up meaning a damn thing. Most of them died anyway. I failed, and I - for some damn reason I’m still _fucking_ here and - and it all meant nothing.”

She stopped mere inches away, right up in Raven’s face, but the other girl still looked unperturbed.

“Are you done?” Raven asked.

“You’re not afraid of me.”

“Am I supposed to be?”

“Most people are.”

_“Most people_ are idiots. And haven’t seen everything that I’ve seen.”

“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. Or what I’ve done.”

“You’re right, I haven’t. But it seems to have fucked you up real good.”

“What do you want from me, Raven? Why can’t you just let me go back to sleep?”

“Because you need a shot of algae moonshine instead.”

“So you want to put me in a coma instead. Great. I can’t go back to sleep peacefully, I need it to hurt first.”

“I’m just talking about alcohol. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, so Bellamy didn’t tell you that part? Of course not. Not his proudest moment. But of course for some reason I still don’t fucking understand he expects me to make amends to _him.”_

“Seriously. Octavia. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Bellamy _poisoned_ me. To try to stop the war. With Monty’s algae.”

“You mean that shit that put Murphy in a coma?”

“So I’m told. I would’ve died if it wasn’t for Jackson.”

“Kane said that Bellamy and Clarke had negotiated a surrender, but I can’t believe that your brother would do something like that.”

“Believe it. Because he did. He seems to think that Diyoza would’ve just let Wonkru into the valley peacefully so we could live happily ever after.”

“Happily ever after in shock collars, maybe.” Raven muttered, hand going to her neck, where Octavia saw angry welts and bruising.

“They did that to you?” Octavia asked.

“Oh, wasn’t just them. It was dear old Abby too.”

Octavia’s expression darkened. “And why doesn’t that surprise me. Why did she do it?”

“I refused to help her get her next fix.”

“I’m sorry, Raven.”

“For what? You didn’t do it.”

“No, but… everything that happened in the bunker… that’s why Abby’s the way she is.”

“Did you force the pills down her throat until she became an addict?”

“What? No. Of course not.”

“Then it isn’t your fault. If she couldn’t cope with something, if she couldn’t handle it - that’s on her, not you. Don’t you ever blame yourself for an addict’s behaviour.” Raven looked at Octavia with an inscrutable look. “She did something, didn’t she? In the bunker. You’re not a fan of her either.”

“We all did things.”

“It’s more than that. It’s personal. I know Abby went to Shallow Valley to get away from you, but then - finding out what she had really become, what she did to me - please, I want to know your side of the story.”

Octavia looked down to find Raven’s hand on her arm. She pulled away.

“I’ll pass.”

“I’m not putting you back in cryo. Like I said, you can’t hide from the pain.”

“What do you know of my pain?”

“I don’t. I don’t know you, but I know pain.” Raven sighed. “Pain… pain and I have been bosom buddies for years now.”

“It’s different.”

“It is.” Raven’s expression softened. “It’s why people consider my pain inspirational, but yours something to hide or, worse, destroy, if it doesn’t suit their purposes. Something to use as a bargaining chip to get what they want, even if it destroys you in the process. Or they use you and use you and take and take and take and are surprised when it all blows up in their faces.” Raven’s expression hardened again, but Octavia could tell it wasn’t directed at her, it was directed at something far away and long gone, but a rage that still simmered beneath the surface of Raven’s every waking moment.

“I’m guessing you’re not talking about me anymore.”

“Well, I don’t know what your damage is, but I’d venture it isn’t that much different than what I’m talking about.” Raven’s eyes filled with tears. “Where you do the right thing, over and over and over again, but things still get worse, and - and it breaks you. This world takes the kindest most gentle people and destroys them piece by piece. Optimism is the worst disease. I guess it never happened to me, because - because I already had no optimism to lose. Just people.” Raven picked at a thread on her shirt. “It made me feel like a right bitch when I was ready to fight and you two went looking for peace, but… I guess I got the better deal in the end.”

Octavia finally realized who Raven was talking about. She hadn’t thought him for a long time. “You’re talking about Finn.”

“Not only him. But he was the first. I lost Sinclair because of a man driven mad by grief after Clarke and Bellamy killed his entire civilization. I should hate him for that, Emerson, but - would any of us have done any different? If the same thing happened to us? Wouldn’t we go looking for revenge? How can I hate him for doing something that I would be sorely tempted to do if I was in his shoes?”

“Oh don’t tempt me.” Octavia said, glancing back to the cryopods. “I’d have a few scores to settle myself.”

Raven’s fingers closed around Octavia’s wrist. “Don’t. Don’t let the grief win. Don’t let it turn you into the worst version of yourself.”

“That’s the difference between us, Raven. I’ve got nothing left to lose. I’ve already become the worst version of myself.”

“I don’t believe that. You’re still standing here. You’re still alive.”

“Most of my people died. Because of me.”

“What? No. Who the hell told you that?”

“Bellamy. Indra. Everyone.”

“No. Your people died because Clarke and Kane and that bitch Diyoza betrayed us. We had the plans, Echo was solid, it was good - but they betrayed us. Not you.”

Octavia looked to the cryopods again. She thought she could see one of them, could see _Marcus Kane_ written on one of the monitors, it wouldn’t be hard… he was mostly dead anyway, from what she’d heard, just open the pod for a few minutes, let him die and then close it again, they’d put it down to a malfunction, _surely_ … the dark voice in her mind whispered at her.

Before she could even think on it more, her feet started moving in that direction, tugging Raven off-balance as her hand was still on Octavia’s wrist, and she stumbled along after her.

“Octavia, no. Don’t do it.”

“You just told me that it’s because of _him_ that my people are dead. I have to avenge them. One death for hundreds though, it doesn’t feel like enough, they -”

“No. Don’t, Octavia. You’re better than this.”

“I’m not. I’m a killer. That’s all I’ve ever been good at.”

“Then find something new. I can’t let you do this.” Raven dropped her hold on Octavia’s wrist and grabbed her around the middle, pulling her back.

Octavia wasn’t expecting Raven to have such technique or speed, clearly Bellamy hadn’t been the only one training with Echo while in space, but she pushed that thought aside as she tried to fight her way out of Raven’s grip as they tumbled to the floor, seeing red as the screen reading _Marcus Kane_ was mere feet away.

“I need this. Let go of me!” Octavia shrieked, as Raven tightened her grip.

“No. You don’t. You think you feel lost now, it won’t make it any better. It isn’t the way to find yourself again.”

“How would you know? You don’t know anything about me. Let me go!” Octavia struggled against Raven’s grip, but she could tell she was fighting a losing battle. She could still feel the aches and pains from a battle now fought over a century ago, cryo hadn’t made any of them go away, and thus Raven was winning easily.

_“Ai giv ai op…”_ Octavia heard Raven start to murmur in her ear, but it didn’t make any sense, why was Raven speaking _Trig?_ She didn’t even know Raven could.

_“Ai giv ai op… gon nemiyon… kom lanik-de…”_ Raven whispered again, over and over. “Breathe, Octavia. Breathe, and say it with me. Please.”

The fight started to go out of her, but Raven wouldn’t loosen her grip, and wouldn’t stop whispering that phrase. It felt familiar somehow, like she’d heard it before, but not in a long time, and she couldn’t place it.

_“Ai giv ai op… gon nemiyon… kom lanik-de.”_ Octavia whispered, saying it with Raven.

“Good.” Raven murmured. “Keep going. _Ai giv ai op… gon nemiyon… kom lanik-de…”_

Octavia didn’t know how long they lay on the floor of the cryo chamber, whispering that phrase. _I give myself to the miracle of the sea. I give myself to the miracle of the sea._

The sea. That was it.

“Where the hell did you learn that?” Octavia asked when Raven finally let her go and they both sat up. “It wouldn’t have been from Echo or Emori on the Ring.”

“It wasn’t.” Raven smiled sadly, standing up and extending a hand to Octavia. Octavia took it cautiously, standing up.

“It was Luna, wasn’t it? But how? Why?”

“When we were in Becca’s lab, working on Nightblood. I was… losing my mind. And not handling it well. I lost my shit on Murphy, and Luna came to stop me. She held me down, and made me repeat that line with her. It helped. And it stayed with me.” Raven was silent for a moment. “And what we did to her - taking her bone marrow against her will - Luna helped me keep my mind, but we made her lose hers. Bellamy told me what happened at the Conclave.”

“Then he also would have told you that I killed her.”

“You didn’t kill her. _We_ killed her. There, in that lab. You just… finished the job.”

“How am I any different from her?” Octavia asked plaintively. “I feel dead. I’ve felt dead for years, living with all of the pain and the horror. But I’m still walking, talking, breathing. I almost died, I - I stepped out there to save them, I should have been dead, but then Echo and Madi showed up, and - and I lived.”

“You have a second chance.” Raven said, squeezing Octavia’s hand. “Most people, in this world… when they get taken over by the darkness, all the death… they don’t come back. They’re dead. But you’re here. You have a chance to do something different. Something new. And if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for all the people who walked into that darkness and didn’t get to come back. Do it for Finn. For Luna. For Jasper. For all the people we lost along the way to other people’s darkness. For Sinclair. For Lincoln. For all of your people that died in that battle. Make them proud of you. So that one day when you do meet again, you can tell them that you walked away from that darkness. That you didn’t drown yourself in that misery. That you didn’t choose pain, but that you chose life.”

“You think I can?”

“Damn right you can. They call you by many different names, but ‘quitter’ isn’t one of them. Come on, let’s get out of here. You’ve got a world to change.”

“I might need a shot of that moonshine first.”

“Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from “Feel Something” and “I’ll be Good” by Jaymes Young.


End file.
